


Written in the Scars on Our Hearts

by ladyofbrileith



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Breathplay, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide attempt, M/M, Power Exchange, Scar Worship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-22 00:15:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7410826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyofbrileith/pseuds/ladyofbrileith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When an injury in battle reveals what's under the wrist wrap Bass has been wearing since he came to Willoughby, Miles has to finally face the damange he's done to both Bass and to himself, and Bass has to decide if he's willing to take the risk necessary to put things right again.</p><p>Written for Kink Your Revolution and fulfills a horizontal bingo for Card #10: breathplay, Miles, scar worship, Bass, power exchange</p>
            </blockquote>





	Written in the Scars on Our Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> This one's been rattling around in my head and hard drive for a while and got crazy long, but I hope you enjoy! Also--this is totally my headcanon for why Bass has his wrist wrapped all of Season 2.

“Jesus, Bass. Stop acting like a baby and let me look at it.” Miles flashes Bass an irritated look. They spent the day fighting Patriots, like the day before and the day before that, stretching back months now. That might sound horrifying to most people, normal people, but, mostly, for them, it just feels right.

Miles refuses to examine that too closely, like he refused to let Rachel talk him out of coming with Bass and Charlie when they ran off to join Blanchard’s merry men and get the fuck out of Willoughby.

At least they’re on the right side, this time.

Currently, however, Bass is cursing under his breath, cradling his left wrist, rotating it with a wince as he tests it out after a Patriot shot his horse out from under him, sending him tumbling to the ground. He’d hit in a roll, experience keeping him from throwing out an arm like that would somehow break his fall without breaking the bone, but he’d still hit it hard enough that Miles was concerned: he'd come up fighting, but Miles noted him doing said fighting with only one sword by the end of the day.

“I think I can tell if my wrist is broken or not, Miles. And it’s not—just jammed a little. If we had ice, that’d be great, but I’ll soak it in the river and it’ll do.”

Bass shrugs, pushing to his feet to presumably go do just that, but Miles reaches out to stop him, fingers curling around his right wrist. He doesn’t have to use much pressure—the brush of his fingers has Bass stilling, looking down at him with those blue eyes that used to reveal every facet of Bass’s mind and soul but which have been shuttered for too many years.

“Let me look at it,” he repeats quietly, but in that tone that Bass at least half the time listens to again. The shutters in his eyes crack to give Miles a glimpse of some violent emotion he can’t identify and for a moment he actually thinks Bass might deck him, except, deadly as his left hook can be, that would just hurt the only wrist he’s got free at the moment.

Not that Bass is above a little masochism to prove a point.

When the punch doesn’t come, Miles tugs at Bass whose lips twist in something like a smile pasted over a bitter joke Miles doesn’t know the punchline to, but he dutifully presents his wrist. Miles winces internally at the mangled flesh where his tattoo used to be but makes himself look away and focus lower on the band of fabric around Bass’s wrist.

As he works to get the knot undone, it occurs to Miles that he doesn’t think he’s seen Bass without the makeshift wrist-guard since the Tower, and his fingers still for a moment, working through his memories. A lot of the time, he’d been pretty angry at Bass ( _at himself_ ), and maybe not as observant as usual of his best friend. Either way, Bass’s wardrobe choices had been low on Miles’ list of things to worry about, but now that he thinks about it…no. He hasn’t seen Bass without it.

He glances up, meaning to ask, only to find an expression on Bass’s face that twists through his gut like a Jagdkommando: angry and uncertain, bleak and wretched, maybe a little bit terrified. Miles’ fingers fumble in undoing the knot.

“Bass…?”

“Go ahead, Miles.”

The maelstrom settles into something just resigned and that’s almost worse, but Miles drops his gaze back to the fabric, finally getting it undone. Unwinding it feels portentous in the worst way and, when it’s done, proves to have been so. If he’d thought about the wrist wrap at all, he might’ve been more prepared, but he hadn’t, so the jagged scar over the ulnar artery makes his stomach clench and his fingers tighten enough that Bass hisses in pain, reminding Miles that the wrist in his hand is, in fact, currently injured.

For a long moment, he’s back on that hill by four fresh graves in the cemetery in Jasper, catching the glint of his headlights off the metal of Bass’s gun. The same mix of fury and fear rolls through him as he stares at the darkest, still red, scar and the faint lines of older—pink and white—ones behind it. Too many thoughts and words jockey for precedence, but he lets them riot while he tries to get the raging emotion back in check.

When he looks back up, Bass gazes at him lips pressed together, chin lifted just enough to signal his defiance, just _daring_ him to say anything, and Miles wants to punch him, but spits out instead, “You _promised:_  never again.”

Bass has the temerity to laugh, dark and bitter but still sounding almost amused as he scoffs, “Yeah, well. You _promised_ you’d always be there. Guess which one of us broke his promise first?”

This time, instead of another internal wince, Miles visibly flinches, tightening his grip when Bass tries to pull his arm away with a sharp jerk that only serves to make _him_ wince, in turn, though probably for different reasons.

He’s known, of course; known since the moment he saw the concern turn to befuddlement that turned to comprehension and then shattered through Bass’s blue eyes and outward until his body had just collapsed in resignation. Bass never even reached for his gun, that night. Miles knew then; knew through those long, cold nights in Chicago; knew in the power plant when Bass dropped his gun; knew in the Tower when Miles called Bass back to him with just a tilt of his chin; knew when Bass followed Charlie home like a lost puppy; knew when they fell into a rhythm and their own language, circling around Charlie and pulling her with them; knew when the disbelief rioted across Bass’s face in the bank vault; knew when he smiled that doped up smile, the sweetness that was always _Bass_ and never _Monroe_ shining through like a rainbow after a hurricane; knew when Bass chose him, again and again. He’d _known_ , even if he didn’t have words for it until Rachel challenged him on trusting Bass with the Patriot President.

_“I got nothing.”_

_“Well, you got me.”_

_“It did that for you. Everything I have **ever** done was for you. How you care so much about the Republic. I don’t care. Only thing I ever cared about was watching your back. That’s the only reason I followed you into any of this…and you try to kill me for it.” _

He’s pushed those words away for well over a year now, dismissed them, let himself believe the worst about Bass’s motives for being back, let himself believe the lie that Bass just wanted revenge for the nukes, let himself believe Bass only wanted him back in his life as some way of returning them to their former glory of running the Republic.

No—not let himself believe; he hasn’t been buying into a lie anyone else told; he’s been lying to himself. 

The raised ridge running down the center of Bass’s wrist with those paler marks below, suggesting the wound that made that scar might have been the deepest but wasn’t the first, eviscerate Miles’ lie, and he feels it burn to ashes inside of him.

The words that encompass the void opening up in their wake might exist somewhere, but Miles doesn’t possess them. Even if he did, he knows he’d fail at getting them out of his constricted throat. _I’m sorry_ seems too small to hold the depth and breadth of regret rocking him.

He’d always thought he’d be the one to catch Bass if he fell; instead, he’d been the one who pushed him off the cliff.

Bass stops trying to free his wrist, going very still instead as he studies Miles’ face like he’s trying to pull the fractured thoughts out of his head. Miles draws a breath, tries to speak, even without the words to do so, but, as he suspected, can’t. In lieu of that, then, he lifts the wrist he’s gone from trapping to cradling, ducking his head away from those too-wary ( _too accusing_ ) ( _too forgiving_ ) blue eyes to press his lips to the hardened skin.

***

As nice as it might be to hear, an _apology_ isn’t something Bass has ever needed. Miles’ words come stilted, awkward when he’s forced to get sentimental. Maybe it’s pathetic, but mostly, he just wanted Miles to let him stay, not force him away from the only sun he’s ever figured out how to orbit around. Miles did more; he came with them when they left, fought by Bass’s side, threw his bedroll on the ground near Bass’s.

Hoping for more seems greedy, even if sometimes he wants to scream at Miles, _I chose you over my son, even after you were the one to take him away from me._

All right. Maybe he’s greedy. Miles is the martyr here, not him.

So maybe some part of him has imagined this (maybe not this, exactly; his scars aren’t something he flaunts, but signs of weakness that map the path to the chasm he shivers in, far removed from the peaks of strength where those around him reside; they aren’t cries for help, but monuments of shame), but he never expected its fruition, and certainly not like this. Miles’ lips remind him that the tissue is not, in fact, dead, and he draws in a breath sharply at the tingling sensation.

Miles looks back up, quickly, fingers loosening their grip more. Concern etches his features, like he’s afraid he’s hurt Bass again, but the throbbing of the injured tendons has paled as the sensation along the scar comes into focus. It pushes against Bass’s armor, searching for a chink, then finds one almost simultaneously, made by the broken guilt in Miles’ gaze. Bass shifts, like that will dissipate the butterflies immolating themselves in his stomach, but doesn’t pull away.

If pressed, Bass couldn’t name the source of his discomfort, but whatever Miles sees in his eyes has him lowering his lips back to Bass’s wrist, nuzzling a moment before dragging them over it again, and Bass’s heart vaults over a beat or two. His breath falters in turn, then resumes at an irregular rate—slow inhale held too long, stuttering exhale; sharply indrawn, released on a sound somewhere between a whimper and a sigh when Miles’ traces the white lines with his tongue.

“Miles…”

Miles answers by tightening his fingers just enough to be a command and tugs Bass a step closer. He could resist, but that seems terribly counterproductive. Maybe he’ll regret it when Miles comes to his senses, but more likely he’ll cling to it like a plank of possibility that keeps him from drowning in an ocean of obsolescence. _Dramatic, much?_ That cruel voice that keeps him company through sleepless nights mocks him, but then Miles’ free arm wraps around the back of Bass’s thighs to pull him close enough that his dark hair brushes Bass’s belt, and Bass firmly tells anything and anyone who wants to detract from this (even voices in his own head) to fuck off.

He’s acutely aware that they’re outside, by their fire, however, on display for any prying eyes, and that’s something Miles has always avoided, first due to necessity, then out of privacy and possessiveness. They weren’t a _secret_ back then (Bass was loud; tent walls were thin), but Miles and PDA didn’t mix. Not that this is that ( _unless it is?_ ) (Bass braces his knees after a second flick of Miles’ tongue, and he’s far too aware of Miles’ head in the vicinity of his stirring cock) (so maybe it’s a little bit of _that_ ). But whatever it is, the intimacy mingles with Bass’s shame over the scars, and he doesn’t give a fuck if Miles wants to suck on his cock where everyone can see ( _Christ, that image isn’t helping_ ), but he keeps the scars covered _for a reason_.

“ _Miles_ …” He does tug, then, as the pleasant twisting of his insides hardens to something that threatens to make him sick. He doesn’t want to wreck this; he doesn’t want someone else to intrude; he doesn’t want Miles to stop, ever; he doesn’t want to have to feel himself shatter in the aftermath. “Please…”

***

The last time Bass said “please,” Miles had a gun on him while Bass asked him to come home. He hadn’t had to wrap his wrist then, a truth Miles will circle back around to in a moment, undoubtedly; he hadn’t been hiding, naked want and fear danced around each other in his eyes. When Miles looks up again, that same expression grounds the word, and he’s confused. Please, what? Stop? Don’t stop? Don’t be upset? Let him go? Pull him closer? They used to have full conversations with a glance, but while they still do when it comes to a fight, Miles suspects he’s been misreading everything else Bass’s eyes have been trying to say to his for a very long time.

The frantic flicker of those eyes toward their nearest neighbor’s fire—which, okay, is a lot closer than Miles maybe realized, even if they like to set up a bit apart (better perimeter, more likely to hear someone disaffected with the truce sneaking up on them)—gives him a clue, at least, even if Bass and shyness are antithetical concepts. 

He pushes to his feet, but he doesn’t let go. Instead, he shifts his hold from Bass’s wrist to his hand and tilts his head toward the tent in a silent question. He can’t read the answer clearly in Bass’s eyes—either due to the falling twilight or his own lapsed literacy--but the hesitant nod is enough for Miles to guide them into the tent.

“Sit.” His voice is gruff with all those words he doesn’t know how to say and comes out more command than he means it to be, but Bass obeys, lowering himself to perch on the edge of one of the three cots, wary gaze tracking Miles’ movements in a way that makes him squirm with something slipping between guilt and nerves. “Stay here.”

That defiant look from earlier sparks again in Bass’s eyes, which, Miles decides, is better than the wariness, even if a thread of fear still lingers underneath it. “I’m not a dog, Miles.”

He drops to a crouch in front of Bass, cradling his wrist again with a sigh. After his family died, their commander had made Bass see a shrink for a bit; Miles had met with the man, once, with Bass’s permission, and some half-remembered, not fully understood, advice the shrink had given him surfaces now: _“If you need to leave, especially when he’s upset, try and be clear about where you’re going, why, and both that you’ll be back and when.”_ He’d never been sure of the _why_ of the advice, hadn't wanted to ask for details that might put a name to disquieting moments and troubling observations, but it seemed to make Bass less anxious when he left, so he’d kept to it for a while, until everything went to hell. He pulls it out now, the words feeling heavy and misshapen on his tongue.

“I’m just going to go down to the river and get some cold water for the swelling—you need to rest it. I’ll be right back.”

He needs a moment, too, to process those scars and his own visceral reaction to them, and he breathes a sigh of relief when Bass rolls his eyes but leans back on the cot. “Fine.”

* **

After Miles leaves, Bass considers taking that _“fine”_ back and ditching his position on the cot for one on someone else’s cot in someone else’s tent where someone else can deal with the surge of emotion and lust Miles’ lips and looks triggered. The river runs not far away, but far enough that Miles will have remembered all the reasons they haven’t done anything involving lips and skin that wasn’t somehow striking at each other in six years.

But it’s not someone else’s lips he wants on his skin and it’s not someone else’s skin he wants under his lips, so he stays.

Miles returns in minutes, though they’ve stretched so long and taut inside of Bass he’s sure they or he will snap before the Miles gets back. He hears him outside the tent, a gruff murmur, followed by Charlie’s voice with a tilt upward at the end, asking a question he can’t pick out the words to. Miles’ rumble in response is equally incomprehensible ( _like everything else right now_ ), and the tension coils tighter around Bass’s heart and lungs, nearly exploding when Charlie ducks into the tent.

She tosses a sideways glance at him, questions within it that she doesn’t seem able to ask any more than she can quite meet his eyes.

“I’m just gonna…” A gesture at her pack, which she quickly picks up, before hesitating and finally looking at him, something searching in her gaze, testing whatever answer Miles gave, perhaps.

“Okay.” Wholly inadequate, though he’s not sure for what.

Her lips curve in a sort of resigned amusement, maybe a little sad. “G’night.”

She’s gone, and his response slides out after her, moments before Miles ducks back in, and he looks as uncertain as Charlie did, as Bass feels, and suddenly the whole situation strikes Bass as terribly amusing, and he falls back on the cot laughing, unable to stop even when he can hear the not-quite-right-ness of it echoing in the hollow spaces and shadowed corners of the tent and his heart.

 Miles stares at him like he’s lost his mind ( _again_ ), then rolls his eyes and moves to kneel in front of him ( _again_ ), which shuts Bass up, because Miles on his knees, even when just for utility’s sake, is not a thing to be laughed at. He surrenders his wrist when Miles reaches for it, drawing in a breath quickly at the shock of the cold when Miles plunges it into the bucket and the water waiting there. If it were July, it would be refreshing. In March? Not so much.

“I’m not sure I can keep it submerged the suggested twenty minutes.”

“Just give me a sec…” Miles hunts though the tent ‘til he finds a length of cloth he brings back and soaks in the water. Drawing Bass’s now-quite-numb hand out, he wraps the cold fabric around his wrist, covering the scars again. Sitting back, he keeps Bass’s hand in his, studying the fabric wrap, then lifts the hand to his lips and draws one cold finger into his mouth slowly.

Bass bites his lower lip to hold back a groan as the heat and sensation slam right into his cock, which is suddenly, achingly jealous of his finger. When Miles’ teeth scrape over his fingertip, Bass’s hips buck a little. When Miles’ mouth captures a second finger, sucking away its numbness in turn, Bass’s head falls back and his eyes close. When Miles’ tongue strokes between the two fingers and over the sensitive skin between, Bass’s lips part on a moan, and he feels as much as hears Miles’ chuckle against his skin.

* * *

Bass tastes like river water and salt, a little earthy with the mix of the two, and completely, irrevocably himself. Miles flashes back through years of memories to stolen kisses behind the trees on the bank of the Patoka River, out of sight of the others splashing in the water on hot summer days. The fingers he’s sucking on are rosy again, no longer cold against his tongue, but he keeps the teasing pull going until he gets another moan out of Bass.

Then he does it all over again with the other two fingers.

By the time he deems Bass's hand warm enough, his jeans are tight from the sounds Bass is making and the hard line of Bass’s cock strains visibly against the confines of his pants. Miles' gaze strokes over it, upward, to meet the shimmering ( _kinda wrecked_ ) blue of Bass’s eyes, and Miles quirks a smile at him before sitting back on his heels once more.

“Lose the jacket, and the shirt.” It’s soft, but clearly an order. Bass can be obstinate sometimes, defiant, even, when he disagrees with the order. Today, he obeys without protest and with alacrity.

Miles watches and appreciates in a way he hasn’t allowed himself since Bass came back into his life. Too tempting, too easy to fall back into those old patterns if he fell back into Bass, so he’s disciplined his gaze to tear away from sleek muscle and golden skin. Now, he lets go of the reins and almost groans. He holds it back, barely, but he knows his face has to be giving away his thoughts from the flicker of smugness than dances over Bass’s.

“Lay back.”

Bass does so with a smirk on his lips Miles wants to erase. Surging up, he captures the other man’s mouth with his own. The part that wants to punish Bass wars with the part that wants to punish himself and both war with the part that wants to exonerate them both and erase the past six years.

But they both have too many scars to be able to forget, so all he can do is forgive.

His kiss gentles with that resolve, less an assault and more a coaxing—not that Bass needs much coaxing, as his mouth parts under Miles’ almost immediately, and his body arches up in a way that produces a delicious shock of friction. Miles takes in the groan Bass makes and echoes it back with one of his own when Bass’s fingers wind in his hair. The brush of the trailing end of the coming-unwound-and-not-quite-cold-anymore cloth wrapped around Bass’s wrist reminds Miles of what started this, though, and he reaches to gently, but firmly, disentangle Bass’s fingers from his hair—resulting in a couple of sharp tugs when Bass resists. Once he has them, though, he presses the former president’s hands up above his head, holding them there loosely.

Lifting his head, he breaks the kiss, before giving another soft order. “Keep them there.”

The firm set of Bass’s jaw suggests he’s about to protest, so Miles makes the order firmer: “Keep them there, Marine. I don’t want to have to use my belt with your wrist…” The _“but I will”_ is silent (and a lie). 

Bass studies him for a moment, something Miles still can’t fathom in his gaze ( _what will it take to be able to read him again?_ ), but his arms relax, settling where Miles put them, and he covers the defiance by lowering his lids. When he looks at Miles again, the insubordination has fled, and something Miles hasn’t seen in six long years ( _longer than that, truthfully_ ) settles in its place: submission.

The look skewers through Miles with such force that he almost comes in his pants. Bass knows, but the smugness stays quiescent, the knowledge revealing itself in a look that instead reflects something more like pride in pleasing Miles. A thought chases its tail through Miles’ brain, a question that can only circle, never answered ( _he’s not sure he’d survive the answering_ ): _what if?_ What if he’d tried to wrest control when he saw Bass spiraling? What if he’d ordered him to stop? What if he’d taken _him_ in hand rather than a gun? What if?

Anger and regret go back to war with each other, and heartbreak decides to throw itself into the fray before self-loathing charges in, making it a foursome, and not one of the fun kinds. When he kisses Bass again it’s hard and angry as his hand slides down Bass’s arm to curl lightly around his throat, caressing its lines for a moment before slowly tightening his grip.

* * *

After everything Miles has put him through, it would be a point of pride to _not_ submit, but it would also be shooting himself in the foot, since saying he wants this is a gross understatement: he’s craved it since the first time Miles got pissed at him for flirting with Ricky Whatshisname at baseball practice and fucked him raw against the shower wall after everyone else had left.

He wonders if Miles ever caught on that Bass made it a game after that: push the right button, get Miles riled, win at life, or at least feel like he had. Sometimes he thought Miles suspected; other times, not so much. He wonders what Miles would have done if he’d kissed him after Miles slammed him into that barn wall for shooting the Ranger. Rachel, Aaron and Charlie right there, watching. He wonders if he could have made Miles stay, if he’d let the man slam him into the wall in the power plant instead of fighting back. He wonders…and then he’s not wondering anything at all, because the tightening grip of Miles’ fingers cuts off any wandering in the past his mind wants to do, pulling it sharply back to the here and now and his decreasing flow of air.

His eyes snap open, vaguely alarmed; the angry look in Miles’ eyes offers no reassurance, though, and Bass’s alarm grows less vague. His "best friend" has tried to kill him, more than once, after all. It would be just Bass’s luck that he’d do it again when Bass was vulnerable, just when Bass started to trust. Momentary paranoia has him bucking a little (his cock certainly doesn’t mind the development, but he’s ignoring it for the moment). The line of Miles’ mouth twists, and even through the fear Bass sees that the rage in Miles’ eyes isn’t directed at him ( _or not all of it, at least_ ); Bass stills again.

He slowly realizes that Miles hasn’t tightened his grip any farther—enough for Bass to feel it, enough for the threat to be there, but not enough to cut off the air. Bass could say something; maybe he should; maybe Miles should, but, again, Miles sucks at words and Bass has found using them around him to be futile lately, so he keeps his mouth shut and watches Miles instead.

He sees the regret there; he sees the offer; and, for the first time in forever, he sees the moment Miles understands his answer.

Miles trusted Bass with the President; Bass trusts Miles with his life, then, still, always. From stilled, he shifts to pliant once more.

Miles nods, giving him a half smile of acknowledgment, before his gaze hardens, and his grip tightens again.

“Is this what you want?” He’s not asking about the grip of his hand, Bass knows. Miles might suck at talking about his feelings, but he’s eloquent in his threats. Bass used to get hard watching him interrogate prisoners. In hindsight, that was probably a signal something had gone amiss, but Miles would growl in his ear as he fucked him afterward, and Bass would come so hard he forgot to be worried about his own mental health.

Miles’ voice takes on that well-known croon, as his hand tightens to the point of discomfort, and his words are as well-honed as his sword. He gives no quarter in play or battle. “I could end it for you, if you want it so badly.”

 _You almost did,_ Bass answers with his eyes before he remembers that isn’t the point of the exercise. The words are the same, though, as he lets the shimmer of pain show.

“You promised.” Some of the anger—real anger, real heartbreak—cuts through the detached murmur. “Gave me your word, swore again and again. After the accident; after Shelly.” His hand tightens more, and Bass struggles to draw in air, feeling a tingling in his head and the burning in his lungs. Miles’ grip loosens enough for him to draw in a single harsh breath, then tightens again, and Bass feels the surge of pleasure that makes the binding of his pants painful.

Miles knows that, too. Clever fingers undo Bass’s belt, his pants. Then Miles is straddling his legs and has him in thoroughly in hand—one on his throat, one on his cock, both tight and firm, and at some point Miles must have undone his own pants, too, because the hand on Bass's cock has trapped the slick heat of Miles’ cock against him, too, wrapping around them both. Bass would moan except that would waste air, so instead he rocks his hips up, desperately, until Miles begins to stroke him, and then he doesn’t care so much about the waste of air, letting out a choked sound that passes for a moan.

He could push at Miles, claw at his hand: his are free, after all, but Bass keeps them above his head just as he was ordered, even when he sees spots before his eyes.

Back in the day, Miles took to torture like he was born for it; his grip loosens again, letting Bass breathe, once, twice, a third gasp and then tightens once more. The hand on Bass’s cock stays steady, and Bass can hear his heartbeat thundering inside his head, the words Miles says, hard ones, true ones, going on in a litany of Bass’s broken promises, then shifting to saying all the things Bass would, about Miles' own shortcomings, his own betrayals. Bass hears in them the reverence of a penitent saying his Hail Marys and that’s probably backward somehow, but everything is Miles and Miles’ voice and Miles’ hands and the roll of Miles’ hips against him in time with those hands. The pressure in Bass’s lungs translates into the pressure in his cock, and he forgets that he needs air; he only needs Miles.

“Never should’ve left you; should’ve tied you to the goddam bed until you promised to listen. I let you get away with too much, loosened the leash too far, let you think _you_ were in control, and fucked us and the world over because Christ knows you can’t be left on your own…”

 _No, I can’t. Don’t do it again. Keep the pressure on and never let me breathe if you’re just going to leave when you’re done, because I won’t survive it this time._ He’s crying, Bass knows, he can feel the hot tears streaking his cheeks, blurring Miles’ face (or maybe that’s the lack of oxygen).

Miles’ hand on his cock twists over its head as his grip tightens one last bit, and Bass isn’t sure that he hasn’t acquiesced to that request, but then the hand at his throat releases, and Bass splinters into a million pieces in an explosion of pleasure and a wave of white that follows it.

* * *

Somewhere in the mess of Bass’s orgasm rests a cleansing power. Letting go of his throat, Miles feels so much more let go. His own release is quiet and heralded by a shudder and a half-sob. He watches the rise and fall of Bass’ chest, listens to his relieved gasps sucking in air. His blue eyes closed somewhere in there, but Miles remembers all they said, is pretty sure he read them right.

The cloth--completely untangled,now, despite how obediently Bass kept them above his head--is too cold to wipe them off with, so he grabs the blanket to do the job. Bass isn’t much help, boneless and shivering in the aftermath, but Miles manages. Manages to get them both the rest of the way out of their clothes, too, Bass rousing somewhere in there to help with his boots before flopping back on the cot.

They shift silently, together, until they can settle, pressed skin-to-skin, and Bass regains enough presence of mind to be able to look at Miles, but Miles is out of words once more. So he kisses him, and that seems to do, from the way Bass hums approvingly. Night falls around them, the lantern the only light, but it’s enough that the angry red line on Bass’s wrist keeps pulling Miles back to it.

Reaching for Bass's wrist, he kisses the scar again, then finds another, higher up, less deadly, less emotional: a saber cut, if he remembers right, sometime after Baltimore. Urging Bass onto his back, Miles nibbles up to the white mark on Bass's shoulder where he got hit by shrapnel in Iraq, then to his collarbone, which he managed to snap as he stole home base for the winning run at the state championships their junior year. It grounds Miles, finding and tracing with his tongue the map of their lives on Bass’s skin; he gets a questioning murmur from Bass, which he ignores.

Down again, and Bass’s murmur becomes a soft whimper when Miles finds the line the bullet left when it went through Emma and into Bass. They’ve both got tears in their eyes, then, and Bass’s fingers slide slowly through Miles’ hair in a gesture of both apology and forgiveness Miles didn’t even know he needed. A breath, a pause and then down to Bass's hip and a knife wound from Toledo, to his thigh from another bullet in Scranton, over his groin, just to make him moan and wriggle. He licks a stripe up Bass’s cock before looking up at him.

“Roll over.” Apparently Bass is still in a submissive mood, because he does as he’s told even though it means removing his cock from the promise of Miles’ mouth. Miles lightly bites his ass cheek in approval, earning himself a chuckle.

The marks across Bass’s back are still clear, though they healed as well as could be expected given they had no time to really rest. He remembers the blood, the strain on Bass’s face, the shaken look in his eyes, the determination to try and make things right for Connor, and the aching sadness and frustration that's flickered regularly since the boy disappeared. Miles paints each line with his tongue, though after the second, Bass is squirming so much Miles pauses to smack his ass lightly.

“Stay still.”

Bass whimpers, but complies, and Miles resumes until he reaches the highest mark, by which time he’s all but draped across Bass’s back, his cock nudging Bass’s ass, and he’s already wrung Bass out, but the tension vibrating under the other man's skin says maybe not all the way.

“There’s oil in my bag,” Bass mutters into the pillow, forehead braced on his arms, and Miles pulls away to get it before he can jealously demand to know just why Bass has it on him. But Bass answers the unasked question anyway. “For fucking; not being fucked…”

He doesn’t finish, but Miles hears it anyway, an echo from when he found Bass in a bathroom at a San Diego bar, balls deep in another guy. _“It’s just getting off, Miles. I don’t let anyone fuck me but you…”_ He wasn’t sure then, and isn’t sure now, why that distinction matters, but the memory of them making up afterward brings a smile to his lips. Still smiling, he returns to the cot, tugging Bass on his side so he can settle behind him.

“No more,” he asks more than orders as he slides slick fingers into Bass, working him open as he nibbles up his neck to his ear.

* * *

“No more,” Bass agrees as Miles sheathes himself in him with a moan, filling him up in all those metaphorical ways as much as physically, and Bass kind of wants to cry again, but this time in relief.

Each brush of Miles’ lips felt like absolution and benediction, and each stroke of his hips feels like a promise Bass has been longing to hear.

Miles fucks him slow and steady, even when Bass urges him on, begging him to go faster. The man occasionally has the control of a rock, or so it seems to Bass. But the rhythm has its own magic, especially when Miles matches it with his hand. Already warm and tingling from the attention paid to his scars, Bass finally lets himself melt into this warmth, too.

It lasts longer than he expects, savoring the connection rather than racing to the goal, but by the time they both come, they’re soaked in sweat, trembling and wrecked all over again.

Miles pulls away, and Bass whimpers despite himself at the loss of his warmth. The sound of water sloshing half-rouses him, but not enough to work out what Miles is doing until he feels the freshly chilled cloth wrap back around his wrist. Miles’ fingers close around it gently lifting it to rest on the pillow by Bass’s head—slightly elevated, no pressure on it—before he drapes himself against Bass’s back once more, tugging the blanket up and snuggling into him on the small cot.

The throb of his wrist echoes the throb at his throat, and Bass realizes in passing that both are gonna be bruised come morning. Bruises. Scars. Catharsis. Healing. There’s an analogy in there somewhere that his brain wants to make, but Miles is too warm and his body too relaxed and cynicism isn’t as easy to release as consciousness. Still, as he drifts off with the steady beat of Miles’ heart against his back, he’s willing to take a stab at hope for the first time in a long time.

For now, it’s enough.  


End file.
